The location is Paris, a city I would have hated when I was younger but love now that we are here. The setting is Chez Dumonet (Josephine), a bistrot in the 6th. I came to Paris wanting to love the food, and last night reaffirmed everything I was expecting (yesterday's lunch was a different story, but I haven't decided if I'm going to write about the bad food also yet).
Anyway, the setting is a quiet street and walking in you are made welcome immediately. Our table was large, welcoming, and comfortable in the small, 3/4 full dining room (at 9:00, tres Paris for us but planned because I knew we'd still be on US time).
The amuse was a small cup of cauliflower soup with some balsamic drizzles on top, served with a complimentary glass of white wine for the adults and champagne flutes of Coke for the kids. Plenty of great bread for them as well, with the typically delicious European butter.
To start Stacie had a demi of stuffed mushrooms (about half the items on the menu come in full or half portions) and I had a cold foie gras and black truffle plate from their special truffle section of the menu. Hers was great, that real mushroom flavor you get from wild mushrooms. My foie gras (demi, one thick slice from the turreen completely covered with black truffle slices) was a little disappointing. The foie gras was great but the truffles understated. Coming from a food culture where the current trend is to use truffle oil in everything and knowing how "strong" the flavor of truffle oil is, I expected the sliced truffle flavor and aroma to be much more delicate and subtle, but it was even more subdued than I expected.
The house wine, a Bordeaux, kept me in good spirits and anticipating the main course. One of the fun parts of travelling and dining with the kids is exposing them to different foods and cultures. We've done this since they were little (11, 8, 6 doesn't seem so little anymore), so they're very accustomed to restaurants and working through a menu.
For the kids, we ended up with a demi of boeuf bourguignon with tagliatelle and chateaubriand with potatoes. Both were super, but the boeuf bourguignon was unbelievable. Absolutely the most fall-apart meat I've ever tasted (I had to make sure it was good before giving it to them), and I've done some multi-day sous vide preparations before. The tagliatelle was served with a very light cream sauce and was one of the first things to go. The filet was accompanied by well seasoned skillet potatoes and both meals didn't stand a chance.
Stacie had the duck confit, a crisp (but not shatteringly crisp) skinned affair that was also very good. For someone who usually likes to stay within her comfort zone (which doesn't usually include poultry on the bone), she cleaned it admirably.
My main course was a veal chop smothered in a sauce made from the veal drippings. It was enormous (as if a hunk of veal and a slab of veal had a kid that grew up to be bigger than them), pretty much covered the plate, and was about 1 1/2 inches thick. Perfectly cooked, it is now the gold stardard for a veal rib eye and may have ended the competition. More Bordeaux, some great, fun interactions between the chef and the kids and the waiters and the kids, and it was time for dessert.
If you want a hot dessert, you order it with your meal. We settled (not sure why I wrote 'settled') on a Grand Marnier soufflé and a large (get the picture, the portions are huge) eclair stuffed with a great vanilla-laced whipped cream and raspberries. After the kids asked what the little black dots were in the whipped cream, we talked about real vanilla pods, scraping out the seeds, and how we could make this when we get home. If I could only figure out how to make an eclair as light as what we had last night.
Sorry for all the 'greats', but it is what it is.
So, go. Go with an open mind, relax, and go with the flow. It's as good a dining experience as we've had as a family and worth every euro-cent.
So, go. Go with an open mind, relax, and go with the flow. It's as good a dining experience as we've had as a family and worth every euro-cent.
